Final Fantasy: Every Playable Bard Character In The Games, Ranked

Final Fantasy has its fair share of notoriously powerful entities, iconic characters, and incredible soundtracks. While they aren’t typically the strongest (or even the most important, story-wise), there’s a reason the archetype of the song-strumming, tune-humming bard endures. But in all of Final Fantasy’s illustrious history, who stands out as the most boisterous, bawdy bard?

As there is such a system disparity between each title, a hard comparison of numbers would be impractical. However, the descriptions of some bards’ stats are listed for reference. Additionally, as many Final Fantasy games take a fairly flexible approach to jobs, allowing party members to swap between them on the fly, the party is listed instead of a single character.

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8 Male Units – Final Fantasy Tactics

While Supportive, Bards Cannot Sing And Fight

• Exclusive to male units only
• Brings powerful buffs but at the expense of a party member

The bards in Final Fantasy Tactics must have powerful lungs, because they are able to boost their allies’ abilities from anywhere in the field. However, these male-only party members have a hard time multitasking and cannot fight while piping buffs out at the top of their lungs.

While they do provide powerful support, fighting with one less party member can still be tough, and the bard becomes useful mainly in longer and more drawn-out fights. As the bard automatically renews his singing action in Tactics unless prompted to do otherwise, they grind experience and job points more easily than other jobs.

7 The Adventurer – Final Fantasy 11

A Welcome Addition To The Party, But Very Weak

• Repetitive rotation and a limited number of useful songs
• Great support abilities, extremely challenging to fight even low-level monsters

Any Final Fantasy 11 player will be happy to see a bard added to their party. Bards can buff just about every attribute on their party members, remove status effects, and subdue undead enemies. However, there are major drawbacks to playing this class.

Most MMO players believe that it is important that their class is at least on par with other classes, if not on a level playing field. However, the bard, despite being a level-30-required unlock is practically non-viable without a party to help carry them through even the most moderate of challenges.

6 All Party Members (With The Fire Crystal) – Final Fantasy 5

Easy To Master And Easy To Defeat

• All the usual bard trappings but low survivability
• The bard’s harp damage is fraction based

Similar to the series magic spell staple, Demi, the bard’s hard attacks in FF5 do not do direct damage but take a fractional percentage of an enemy’s health, including enemies on the back row. This makes them very useful against more HP-dense enemies. Unfortunately, their harp attack does not work on “heavy” types or bosses.

The bard job is available to all party members via the Fire Crystal. The bard job is easy to master, but it isn’t exactly a powerhouse. Bards have the second-lowest magic and stamina in the game, meaning they have the second-lowest health and MP pool, meaning that, after coming up against a steep difficulty curve in an otherwise gentle game, the player will definitely be thankful for the ability to swap jobs.

5 All Party Members (With The Water Crystal) – Final Fantasy 3

The Original Bardster

• Originally an offensive singer
• Uses more supportive abilities in the 3DS remake

The bard job has been with Final Fantasy since the third entry in the series. The job is unlocked for any party member after purifying the Water Crystal, along with the bard’s signature “Sing” skill and instrumental weapons. In the original, the bard took on more of an offensive style, but the 3D remake took the bard in a more familiar, supportive direction.

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Bards also have the “scare” ability, which makes enemies of lower levels flee, or boost to increase their party’s level. Like later iterations of the job, the bard in FF3 can also learn songs to reduce damage or restore HP.

4 Hurdy The Moogle – Final Fantasy Tactics A2

Not The Strongest But A Great Support Asset

• Anti-Undead abilities
• Superb mage support

While Hurdy is a minor player in Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire Of The Rift, he is a welcome member, having the ability to heal in a small area, buffing allies, and generally spreading adorable moogle cheer. While shy, he is an amicable soul, and joins Clan Gully for an inspirational adventure in order to improve himself and his craft.

Hurdy is a string player and can learn new abilities from lutes, violas, and hurdy-gurdies found throughout the game. Hurdy also comes with anti-undead abilities, being able to dismiss coffins from the field, and is useful in supporting mages with a small-area 20MP restoring ballad.

3 The Warrior Of Light – Final Fantasy 14

The Perfect Harmony Of Offense And Support & The Real Music Maker

• Skilled musicians can make beautiful melodies in or out of battle.
• Upper 8k to 6k DPS – Condition Extension & Skill Cooldown Support

With an emphasis on dealing ranged damage and status effects, the bard in Final Fantasy 14 is a specialty extension of the archer job. Why the archer? Because bards pluck the strings of a harp and archers strum the string of a bow. Besides having great proficiency with the bow, bards bring with them their usual staples of support, including resetting cast times and extending status effects.

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This flexible mixture of support and damage makes the bard the choice of job for many FF14 fans. But what raises this iteration of the job to bardic greatness is its ability to play music on the fly, in or out of battle. After completing the quest “Plucking the Heartstrings,” bards unlock their performance ability. Real-life musically included players can then use a staggeringly diverse array of instruments to make beautiful tunes. In fact, seeing a band of bards perform in Limsa Lominsa is a common occurrence.

2 Songstress Yuna – Final Fantasy 10-2

Thematically, The Perfect Fit

• Combines bard and dancer jobs
• Buffs party attributes and sustains status effects

Although the dressphere system allows her (or the other two Gullwing girls) to take on any number of iconic jobs throughout the Final Fantasy series, Yuna’s songstress job seems like the perfect fit, perhaps best demonstrated by the iconic pop song and dance show that opens the game with a bang. Technically, the show was performed by an impostor, but still.

In a post-Sin world, Yuna finds a songstress dressphere infused with the spirit of Lenne (herself a summoner and famed songstress) who also lost her love. Rather than summon Aeons and appease the grief of others, Yuna uses the songstress sphere to draw out her own deep feelings of loss, and by resonating with a spirit from the past, she is able to sooth her own undying pain.

1 Edward Chris Von Muir (The Spoony Bard) – Final Fantasy 4 / The After Years

Possibly The Most Iconic Bard In Gaming

• Allows the party to break the damage limit
• Gains the highest stats past level 70 (2D)

Edward, AKA the Spoony Bard, is truly the king of the singers. Or at the very least, the most princely of them, if not the most iconic, being the literal crown prince of Demcyan. Although he starts the game with weak physical and magical attributes, Edward gains the best stats out of all the Final Fantasy 4 party members after level 70.

Edward returns in The After Years as a king with some of his former abilities intact, especially his speed. His special ability, King’s Quad, allows the party to exceed the game’s 9,999 damage cap, laying waste to those unfortunate to get in the way.

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